


Country Warps, Take Me Home,

by aenor_llelo



Series: For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gemsong, Multi, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Steven Universe Future, Reunions, Starting Over, Steven Universe is a Diamond, Time Skips, steven is a fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aenor_llelo/pseuds/aenor_llelo
Summary: To the place, I belong.orSteven comes home.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Series: For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604959
Comments: 40
Kudos: 708





	Country Warps, Take Me Home,

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of a series. Please read from the beginning for full understanding.

* * *

Garnet had predicted there would be a new Gem coming who might want to stay on Little Homeworld. By her calculations, Pearl would be the best face to greet them.

The warp hums right on time. It's a tall Gem, taller than Pearl for certain. Broad and square faced (a Topaz perhaps) with a strange bit of softness in them. The skin of their form is a whitish blushed pink, and their hair, short and tightly curled, almost looks like a single pale rose.

They step hesitantly off the warp, their Gem gleaming in the daylight through the diamond opening of their clothes.

"Welcome to Little Homeworld," she chirps, trying to keep her gemsong as soothing and level as possible. "Are you visiting or transferring?"

"I-" they pause, startled by their own voice. Oh dear. Garnet _was_ right to put Pearl on the job. This one's a bit shy. "I think I might want to stay. If everything works out."

"Well," she stumbles, wishing for a moment that she was better at these kind of social niceties, "Then I certainly wish you luck. I hope things go well for you."

There's an strange, unreadable smile on their face. "I do, too." They look out at all the bustling noise of the town. "It's different than I... expected."

"Well, we _have_ been through a lot of changes recently. Would it help if I gave you a tour?"

"I'd like that. Thank you, Pearl."

=<>=

_Looking for your place in the universe. Don't you know the universe is looking, too..._

Greg opens his eyes with maximum complaint, instinctively reaching for his phone because he could have sworn he didn't set an alarm for today. He unlocks the damn thing and stares at it in disbelief, because it's _also_ insisting there's no alarm.

Which means that the song must be coming from...

He scrambles down the stairs.

_Welcome to the party, Mr. Universe_ , sings a stranger. _We're so glad to be a part of you_.

It's a Gem. A really _big_ pink Gem, like at least Bismuth levels of big.

_Meet the rocks and flowers,_ their low voice continues, _the seconds and the hours._

A big, Bismuth-y Gem cooking breakfast in his kitchen, flipping pancakes and chopping fruits to the rhythm of their own gemsong.

_The splinters, winters, apples, chapels, teardrops, temples,_ they obliviously sing, putting pancakes on two plates, _cats_ _and castles._ _Anything, that you can be_ , the (familiar, why is it so familiar) voice continues, _the things you see and cannot see, are Mr. Universe! Mr.-_

The stranger finally turns just in time to see him.

"... _Universe._ "

Greg knows this face.

These eyes.

These freaky, chunky, double fanged teeth. These curls of hair.

This voice. This gem. This... Gem.

His hand reaches out the way his footsteps, rooted with shock, cannot. " _Steven?_ "

"Hey, dad," the Gem- his _son_ , his beautiful, beautiful son- barely whispers, a tenuous strain of song wavering on the edge of tears.

=<>=

He's taller than _appa_ now. He's almost taller than _her_. Not quite, but just tall enough that she wasn't sure until the exact moment he was standing in front of her.

It's a funny little thing, the human mind. A color change here, a freckle there, and a person can become nearly unrecognizable.

It's a funny little thing, to see him and never realize how much he'd changed until he was right before her eyes.

The funny little things that phones never catch.

The timbre of his gemsong rings differently now. His old chiptunes a sweet, rolling trill, the rising, distant orchestral backdrop in his voice purring with some foreign bass note that lingers in the space between her skull.

The funny little things that Gem communicators cannot convey.

"What _happened_ to you?"

"I guess I got taller?" he offers. 

"You know that's not what I meant."

He's pink now. Pale blush skin, his hair some vague liminal shade that caught rosy in the light only to darken to cherry when shadows pass overhead. Like Lion and Lars, inverted. His white claws nestle in sharp relief against the new colors, and vague freckles of brown and burgundy sparsely dot his form.

No one will ever mistake him for human again.

"Did you- did something happen to Sten?" He startles at the way she frantically paws him for scars, any sign of injury. "Is he okay? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" he chirps, gently taking her hands. " _We're_ fine. We just... evened out, is all."

"Evened out? What do you mean?"

"Even when I started becoming aware of ourselves it was all so... _unbalanced_. Like we were just a voice in my head. And it started getting worse. Those last months before my break were _bad_. Really bad. Steven didn't even _exist_ half the time, it was this weird mental body slam of Sten and Vendan trying to keep us together. We were going Malachite, Connie."

She takes a long hiss of air as the full implications of that sinks in. He looks back up at the stars appearing in the sunset.

"There was never time. I would realize something wasn't right with us, but then something else would come up and it would just... slip my mind. Out there- we had nothing _but_ time. So, _over time_ , we, well-" He gestures down at himself. "-balanced out, I guess."

"What's it like for you?"

"It feels... like I was always supposed to be like this. Like the way we were before there was a we, like we were never anything else. I feel... Steven."

_Steven_. Taller, broader, pinker, and very much alien.

"This is-" He sighs a little resignedly, catching the look on her face. "I'm sorry. This is probably _really weird_ for you, seeing me like this. I don't really look like myself, huh?"

It's a funny thing, the human mind. It's instinct to find the familiar in everything, even a stranger.

She trails a hand on his face. The line of his jaw, more squared than it was before, still so soft.

His hair still impossibly tidy for it's curls, even if a little less uniform in their size than they used to be.

His hands that should have been more callused than her own if not for the pink running in his blood, rendering them deceptively soft.

His eyes- dark, beautiful, diamond eyes- have stayed exactly the same.

"You look like _you_ , Steven."

=<>=

"I can't believe I didn't recognize you!"

He laughs, and this at least, is the same as it was before. "I grew half a foot and got palette swapped, Pearl. I don't blame you for it."

"You let me walk you through an _entire_ Little Homeworld tour!" her keening song cries.

"I needed it," he excuses. "Everything's changed so much, with all the reconstruction. I half thought I'd warped to the wrong planet."

"It's a good look for you, though," Amethyst clicks. "You gonna stay like that or what?"

"Yeah." He holds his hands together with a private smile. "I think I will."

Garnet's song drones over the din, unreadable. "Tell us how long you plan to stay."

"Oh. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that." He holds his own hands a little more nervously, now. "I was wondering if I could just... _stay_."

"You want to move back in?" Pearl asks.

"I wouldn't get in the way of all the Little Homeschool work. And- and I wouldn't kick Dad out of his room, _obviously_. I can just use my Temple room. It's a bit buggy, I know, but I've got some stuff to fix that. I probably wouldn't even _be_ here that much, there's always work out there in the colonies-" The chiptune of his song trills high with tension. "-it's just- even after _everything_ , this place still feels like home. It'd be nice to just... be able to check in, every once in a while, you know?"

"Steven," Greg starts. "We are literally standing in your house."

"You built it-"

"For _you_ to live in. Which you did. For just shy of a decade. It's _your_ house. We aren't going to kick you out of your house."

"We're your family, Steven. Even if we haven't always been the best at _being_ that family." Garnet puts her hands on his shoulders, and they both pretend, for a moment, that neither of them are surprised to find eachother at eye level now. "You'll always have a place here."

"Yeah man!" Amethyst barks. "We missed you! Also Pearl super sucks at being my Player 2."

"I suppose," Pearl's song nervously strings, "things haven't been the same without you. Maybe they never will be. But they don't have to. If this is what you want- if this is _really_ what you want- we could start over." Her eyes waver with the threat of tears. "You've grown so much. I'd like to meet the person you've become."

"I'd like that."

They both might just cry- and if they did, it would be proper Gem keening, and that might go on for hours.

So Greg cuts in with, "Okay! Out of the kitchen! I need to start dinner for two!"

It snaps Steven out of his near-tears. "Oh! I'll help."

"Alright. The rest of you scatter. You too, Amethyst. I want to make lasagna, and I will _not_ have you eating my ingredients."

The rest of the Gems scamper out. Steven takes out the kitchen tools like he never left.

Greg looks at Steven- really looks at him. His son, taller and broader than Greg had ever been, his tidy curls swirled like the crown of a rose.

"Welcome home, son."

The unfiltered smile on his son's face is one he hasn't seen in years. He silently swears away the rest of his life to making it happen again.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a way for me to fully graft SU:F canon to the FADIAMT series!
> 
> This series now has a dedicated written timeline for the curious in the series companion guide, which is the last "fic" listed in the series page.


End file.
